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DISC.
XII.]
THE NATURE OP
T1
YUNISHñ7 NTS
IN
IIELL.
51i
sessses
their
spirits
with a
more
lively sense
of their
mise-
ry,
it
fills
them with a holy
dread of
divine
punishment,
ánd excites the
powerful passion
of
fear
to
make them
fly
from the wrath to
come, 'and
betake
themselves to the
grace
of
God
revealed
in
the
gospel.
The
blessed
Saviour
himself,
who
was
the
most per
feet
image
of
his
Father's
love,
and the prime minister
of
his
grace, publishes
more
of
these
terrors
to the world,
and
preaches
hell
and damnation
to
sinners more
than
all
the prophets or teachers
that
ever went before
him;
and
several
of
the
'apostles
imitate their Lord
in
this
practice
:
They kindle
the
flames
of
hell in
their epistles,
they
thunder
through
the very
hearts
and consciences
of
men with
the voice
of
damnation
and
eternal
misery,
to
make stupid
sinners
feel
as
much
of
these
terrors
in
thé
present
prospect
as
is
possible, in
order
to
escape
the
actual
sensation
of
them
in
time to
come.
Such awful discourses
are
many times also
of
excellent
use to keep the children
of
God, and the
disciples
of
Jesus,
in
a
holy
and watchful
frame,
and to
affright them
from
returningto
sin and
folly,
and
from the indulgence
of
any temptation,
by
setting these
terrors of the Lord be-
fore their
eyes.
O
may these
words
Of
his
terror,
from
the
lips
of
one
of
the
meanest of
his
ministers,
be
attended
with
divine power from
the
convincing
and
sanctifying Spirit,
that
they
may
answer these happy ends
and
purposes,
that
they
may excite a solemn reverence
of
the dreadful ma-
jesty of
.God
in
all
our
souls,
and
awaken
us
to
repen-
tance for every
sin, and a
more watchful course
of
holi-
ness.
Let
us
then consider
the expression
in my
text
:
When
our
Saviour mentions the word
hell, he adds,
where
their
worm
dieth not, and the
fire
is
not
quenched
;
in
which
description
we may
read
the
nature of
this
punishment,
and
the
perpetuity
of
it.
First, We shall consider the
nature of
this punishment,
as it
is
represented
by
the
metaphors
which
our
Saviour
Uses; and
if
I
were to
give
the most
natural
and
proper
sense
of
this
representation,
I
would
say
that
our
Saviour
might borrow
this figure
of
speech
from
these three con-
siderations
:
1.
Worms and
fire
are
the
two
most general
ways
,
whereby the bodies
of
the
dead are
destroyed;
for
whe-